Computer Audio 101: Streaming

The music-loving world has decided they really like streaming. Revenue from streaming services, e.g. Spotify, Pandora, Google Play Music, Amazon Prime Music, have surpassed CD and download sales and the streaming numbers continue to rise. Since AudioStream is the place to come if you love music and care about sound quality, we recommend subscribing to lossless streaming services because they sound better.

Tidal HiFi

Tidal HiFi ($19.99/month) is a CD-quality streaming service with over 40 million available tracks. That's why we love it; lots of music that sounds great. Streaming music from Tidal HiFi is simple, straight-forward stuff. Here are the steps:

Open the Tidal app and tell it where to output your music (Setting > Streaming > Sound Output)

Play music

If you plan to be on the road and want to listen to music from Tidal on your phone without eating up your data plan, you can have Tidal download music to your phone for listening Offline.

Do you see that arrow on the right side of the screen, more than half way down? I already tapped on it in the screen shot above so it has moved The Hot Spot Soundtrack to my download queue. Next, you just have to go to "Offline Content" in the Tidal app menu and The Hot Spot Soundtrack (or whatever album you've picked) will be downloaded onto your phone. You obviously want to do this when connected to a WiFi network.

France-based Qobuz offers Qobuz Hi-Fi CD-quality streaming service for 19.99€/month. Qobuz is available in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Qobuz also offers their Sublime service (219.99€/year) that also allows you to stream the "High Resolution" music you've purchased from their download store.